robintodd

I was told it's the same number of boxes just spaced differently and done so the scenes don't step on one another (or you have to many guests trying for the same notes) Completely agree on the audio. Larry needed to be louder (and Archie could have be quieter )

Rode it Friday twice and then on Saturday with 2 of my grandkids. This ride is absolutely fantastic for what is is meant to be. In my opinion this is NOT for the original Phantom Theatre fans. It is "inspired" by the original ride NOT meant to be a reproduction of it. Keep in mind FAMILY RIDE. The original was much darker and scared small children. This one still does a little (especially the lightning/thunder effects in the queue). The biggest surprise and what made me smile was where the "peppers ghost" effect used to be. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT in my opinion. I'm sure I'm in a minority but I think the peppers ghost effect in today's day and age may be more trouble than it would be worth. Face it people today are a little more "brave" to deface things (spitting on mirrors, gum, etc.) I'm sure that would require daily cleaning. I truely fear for Larry in the queue. They have signs about cameras but by then it may be to late. Plexi glass around the section would help (but spitting may still be there). Doing this would have to have left the exit doors still accessible and would may have affected the popcorn scent (loveley touch). Another observation was the neither the Maestro nor Larry do the narration for the information videos on how to use the flashlights. This may be a signal that in case Maestro or Larry stop working the instructions would still be viable. I used Fast Lane my first ride (20 min) the second i waited in line (almost 3 hours). The line seemed to go in spurts. I can understand this because with the new cars, new tech and I'm assuming some work on the track system since it was exposed I think it will take some time to fine tune it. After all with 28 or so boxes and 400-500 in each box that's alot of weight compared to cycling with half of the boxes empty. Saturday when i took the grandkids it was about 2 hours and even though we were there around 3-4 we did get the keychains they were given out. Finally, I noticed a LARGE amount of people entering through the exit. The line was all the way outdoors every time I passes the ride all day. I'm sure the long waits were becuase of stopping for loading special needs which is fine but it does bring up how many people were taking advantage of the situation to avoid the line. Honestly I've never seen that before with Boo or Scooby. It will be interesting to see how long that line is next weekend or in the middle of the season. I understand the need for those who need it but I have heard that KI is rather lax on the reasons they accept for these exceptions. All in all a FANTASTIC addition which I will be riding over and over. Great job to Sally and the KI team (and Rick)!!

The boxes are two at a time (two boxes, two blanks) this creates much more space between sets of boxes. My first ride the first box had no one in it and I was alone in the 2nd box. I had 999,999 by the 1/2 way point of the ride (Hilda). The second time I rode it i was in the first box with a fellow rider and not sure how many but there were people in the 2nd box. My score was around 390,000. So the more people competing to hit notes the lower the score (from what I could gather 1 person has to hit the note for points, if more than 1 hit it at the same time the note survives. ie. no ties). Hope that helps.

The monster has cars installed!

Monster is getting it's arms!

Whirly birds and racer currently running. We're getting close!

2 weeks till passholder preview day. Action going on at the monster, zephyr has it's canapy on and the scrambler has been running most of the morning!

In my opinion It's a flat, no different than antique cars. To me a roller coaster COASTS. Surf Dog and Pipe Scream both are propelled by the ride vehicle itself. You could put the ride vehicles on the ground and provide power (I'm pretty sure power is supplied by the track) and it will go/stop on its own. The track they run on doesn't have any means of propeling the ride vehicle (besides providing power) nor any way to stop the ride vehicle. Therefore I don't consider it a roller "coast"er. Just my 2 cents.

Yet another sign of opening day getting closer. Woodstock's Whirlybirds are on the track! Also the ride vehicles for Phantom's Theatre are starting to dissapear at the royal fountain stage.

You can see the back of the castle top from the Camp Snoopy and Planet Snoopy cam on their website.

It was if you bought it early enough the allpark passport was included with gold this season. (I got it for my grandkids).

I often wonder exactly how close we came to getting Siren's Curse. My guess is that had TT2 operated consistently from the start we would have gotten Sirens last year.

What would be neat is if they had the scores included on the picture!

Had to do it (Again, if I missed any, let me know). Interesting how close the averages are. Blue Streak 1964 Cedar Creek Mine Ride 1969 5 Corkscrew 1976 7 Gemini 1978 2 WildCat 1979 1 Wilderness Run (Jr. Gemini) 1979 0 Iron Dragon 1987 8 Magnum XL-200 1989 2 Raptor 1994 5 Rougarou (formerly Mantis) 1996 2 Millennium Force 2000 4 Top Thrill Dragster 2003 3 Maverick 2007 4 GateKeeper 2013 6 Valravn 2016 3 Steel Vengeance (rebuilt from Mean Streak) 2018 2 Wild Mouse 2023 5 Top Thrill 2 2024 1 Siren’s Curse 2025 1 AVERAGE YEARS 3.39

I see you point, just not that adding a roller coaster is a must for a park like KI. One of the main concerns is that KI has a need for more flat rides. Also the larger the park is the more it takes to keep up the current park without adding anything new. Not sure where you're getting the 8 or 9 year gap. The last coaster we had was 2024 and I'm looking at 2029 at the lastest (hopefully 2028) for the next coaster. They have twice waited 5 years between coasters and 6 times they have waited 4 years. The Kings Island we grew up with is different than the park now. Then they were fighting to get recognition and the area around the park wasn't nearly as built up with homes as it is now. They had plenty of undeveloped land and a much smaller footprint to keep up than today. The KI of old not only had coasters but also quality shows to draw people. Not all was good, however because KI always wanted to be the "first" which burned them at times with the original Bat being the biggest example of this followed by Son of Beast. The fantastic times we grew up in with CP and KI each adding a coster every other year if not every year are gone for good (they were good times!). A park can only have so many coasters, not only for employee and maintenance costs but I'm sure there is also insurance costs. In the past they just needed to prep land and build a coster. Now they may also need to add in the cost of getting rid of an existing coaster to add a new one. I did a quick look at coasters and when they were built listing the number of years since the last coaster. (I was curious) and found the average number of years between coasters is 3.25. If I missed any in the table below let me know but I found it interesting. Again I may have missed something, let me know. I'm a data nerd so I just had to look this up. Now I need to look at it for CP. Coaster Year Built Year Since Last Coaster The Racer 1972 Woodstock Express 1972 0 Screamin’ Demon / Demon 1977 5 The Bat (1981) 1981 4 King Cobra 1984 3 Vortex 1987 3 Adventure Express 1991 4 Great Pumpkin Coaster 1992 1 Flight of Fear 1996 4 Invertigo 1999 3 Son of Beast 2000 1 Woodstock’s Air Rail 2001 1 Queen City Stunt Coaster 2005 4 Diamondback 2009 4 Banshee 2014 5 Mystic Timbers 2017 3 Orion 2020 3 Snoopy’s Soap Box Racers 2024 4 AVERAGE YEARS 3.25

I agree this would be cool but I fear the event of times past would be brought up again and reflect negatively on the park. I think we should kee stories about people climbling the tower out of the media.

I didn't say they never have to add another roller coaster, my statement was they could not adding anything new in 2- 4 years. Only Flight of Fear would fall in that timeframe. With it being an indoor coaster out of the elements it's life could be longer than other metal costers. Remember Corkscrew at Cedar Point is still operating after 49 years (built 1976). It has been shown that metal coasters can have re-tracking done such as Fury 325 a couple years ago. According to chatgpt: Common operational lifespan for a medium-sized steel coaster is often around 30–40 years before major refurbishment, retracking, or retirement becomes economically likely for a park. Some parks invest in continuous maintenance and retracking, allowing coasters to operate well beyond that range (50+ years) if they remain popular and structurally sound. Interestingly enough the oldest operating all steel coaster is Little Dipper at Memphis Kiddie Park in Ohio (yes a kiddie coaster) was made in 1952. Remember we had Firehawk and Vortex at one time. Both "large" coasters. The only replacement was Orion. People still keep coming. It's not all about coasters especially as KI tries to become more family friendly. That being said, I would expect a new coaster in 2028 or 2029 at the old Vortex spot.

I'm one of those that look at CP and KI cams every morning. Interesting things are going on at the KI cams this am. 1) Crews are quickly tearing down Snowflake lake to complete the task before the weather hits this weekend. They are almost 2/3 of the way done since starting on Wednesday. 2) Zephyer seems to be taken down all the way to the ground (2 cranes are on the pad). I've never noticed this in years past hopefully it's just a routine 10-20 year maintenance. Would be interesting to know if CP's is doing the same thing. 3) Action on the Monster pad. About 4 employees with what looks like an arm for the ride were there this am. 4) The lights on the Eiffel Tower are still up. If I remember correctly these are usually down by now. I'm looking forward to seeing the snow on the KI cams later this weekend.

The park is perfectly right to fear "incidents". Most of the negative press happened on Grad Nights. I was going to the park back then it was more about drinking and drugs in the parking lot in order to "enhance" enjoyment of the park. That being said I must admit the amount of that kind of activity seems significantly less nowadays. Best example I can site is the lack of "teen dance clubs", malls and other places teens would interact etc. Seems like teens are more into staying home on their devices rather than being out in public. Finally, in my opinion the LAST thing KI needs is an attendance driver. With the advent of social media and the number of vlogs/podcasts there is no shortage of "what's new at Kings Island" news without the park needing to do anything. Back in the 80s and 90s it was important to get the word out about Kings Island but nowadays, anyone who is interested in theme parks knows or can easily find out about KI. I don't understand why some people complain about how crowded the park is by "giving away the gate" yet still want to see more marketing to drive attendance at an already busy park. Does it really make sense to market a park and when people come from out of the area and find the park so crowded that it affects their experience in a negative way. KI is unique in that not only is it in the middle of a populated area but it's a wealthier area than most parks are surrounded by (I notice this by noticing the neighborhoods and houses when driving to KI vs CP). I still maintain the park could not add anything new for 2-4 years and NOT see a drop in attendance. If they decide to up the price of season passes then it may make sense to market the park once attendance is an issue but until that time they will be wiser to spend money keeping up with the people in the park rather than attacting more people to an already crowded park.

I've not seen anything on the boards about the "New way to play" for the midway arcade. This was taken from the (several) digital ad boards thorughout the park. The 2 things I didn't capture was the claw pulling up a fastlane pass and a 2026 Gold Pass. Something is coming to the Midway Arcade, didn't know if anyone has any further information on this. (Pics by me).

This is not a good idea without extreme precautions. I would suggest refusing entry for anyone who seems intoxicated and NO selling of liquer for that night. I remember the grad nights. So much alcohol in the parking lot. Most of the "grads" would come into the park drunk. Some of the worst stories came from grad nights (including Tower Johnny). KI get's plenty of attendance without resorting to jr. or sr. frat parties (in my opinion).

Just got back from the park and am pleased to report that broccoli beef is BACK at Panda Express!!!! (seems as it was addedback last week). It's not on the menu board but they were making a fresh batch at 9 and said it's doing very well.

Smart move. Props to those involved.

After seeing the "DEMO LOOP" from the IAPPA show with Maestro and No Legs Larrys, I wouldn't be surprised if that was continuously shown in the lobby where the queue is. Seem to tell the story and be about 15 minutes long. (of course I'd much rather have what was done before.):

Went last night and had a fantastic time. Here were the highlights: 1) The meatloaf burger at Juke Box was fantastic. Unlike the other offerings they have a meatloaf burger displayed (unwrapped) and when you order they grab one out of the hot box behind the counter! Definitely the same quality as when it was at the Brewhouse and it's nice to get fries, onion rings or both as a side. 2) Tinkers show is FANTASTIC (I saw the 2nd show, extremely long line(s)). It is a broadway style "review" with fantastic sets and props. Definetly more money was put into this than previous shows and is by FAR (in my opinion) the best Winterfest show they have ever had. I put it on par with Phantom Theatre Encore. So much energy and Santa no has a much bigger part in the show and the addition of Mrs. Clause is a welcome addition. I got a little teary eyed when the did the "in the mood" number, it brought back such great memories of Woodchopper's Ball Revue. Another favorite part was the TAP NUMBER!!!! Nice to see a couple of nods to the choreography from the tap number in PT Encore. 3) The park looked fantastic. Nice to see the Trolly not runnng along Coney Mall, always seemed to be more of a nucance than anything. 4) Cannot wait to try the 2 new Fry options at potato works. They look really good. I'm going to have to make extra trips down so get all the food options in this year (the turkey ball looks better than last year's version). 5) The parade was like last year and continues to be a must see for me. The energy that is put into the event is amazing and I can't tell anyone involved with pulling it off how much I truely appreciate the effort. 6) One noticable deletion was the replacement of the plastic old time figures in front of Antique Cars (I didn't see any on top of Juke Box either). There are new lighted trees there so I'm afraid they won't make a comeback. If they are no longer going to display/use them (I didn't see them anywhere else in the park). I hope they sell them online, I would love to have one. All in all it seems to be an upgrade from last year. I'm sure there are things that may show up in the weeks to come (crossing fingers for the return of the plastic old time figures somewhere else in the park). Well done to all involved and will be looking to return several times this season!!!!!!!!